192 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
efpecially having my attention engrofled by other objeds, and 
in utter ignorance of the articles fit for bargain and fale in this 
country, feerned wholly impoflible ; I therefore fought for a 
perfon who might go through this bufmefs for me, at leaft with 
fome fhare of probity. Such a one arofe to the notice of my 
friends there ; and knowing nothing more of the m.an, as in- 
deed I could not know any thing more, than the charadler they 
gave of him, I took him on the general recommendation of be- 
ing honeft, and underftanding the bufinefs in which he was 
likely to be employed. The perfon recommended had been a 
flave-broker in the market of Kahira ; a circumftance which, 
had it been known to me earlier, would probably have prevented 
my employing him. Till the moment of departure I had ob- 
ferved in him keennefs but no fraud, and in general that fub- 
miflive acquiefcence and abfolute devotion to the will of the 
fuperior, for which the lower clafs of Kahirines are externally, 
at leaft, remarkable. The hour for commencing our march, 
however, feemed with him the fignal for difobedience and in- 
fulting behaviour ; and we were not yet far removed from the 
confines of Egypt, when this mifcondud: was carried to fuch an 
excefs that I once levelled my gun at him with a view of infpir- 
ing terror. The merchants around us interfered, and for the 
time this pafTed off ; but the man only fought an opportunity of 
revenge, which the prejudices of the people of Soudan, in diredl 
oppofition to my former information, too foon afforded him 
means to gratify. 
The letters with which I was provided for different merchants 
in this diftrid, under whofe roof I might have had a fafe 
lodging, 
